Hipgnosis acquires Joel Little musical catalogue – Hipgnosis Songs has bought the music catalogue of Grammy Award-winning songwriter, producer and musician Joel Little. He is best known for his collaboration with fellow New Zealander, Lorde, with whom he co-wrote and produced both her debut EP and her first album, ‘Pure Heroine’.
The EP included Lorde’s game-changing single, ‘Royals’ which topped charts all over the world, including the US where it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for nine consecutive weeks. Co-written and produced by Little, Royals has sold over 10 million copies globally, making it one of the bestselling songs of all time, and won Lorde and Little “Song of The Year” at the 2014 Grammy Awards and “Most Performed Song” at both the 2014 and 2015 ASCAP Pop Music Awards.
In 2014, Little co-wrote or produced four songs on the soundtrack for “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1”, which was curated by Lorde, including the lead single Yellow Flicker Beat. Yellow Flicker Beat was nominated for “Best Original Song” at the Golden Globe Awards and “Best Song” at the Critics’ Choice Awards.
Little re-united with Lorde for her 2017 US Number 1 album ‘Melodrama’, which was named by Rolling Stone in their “500 Greatest Albums of all Time” chart, notably co-writing the critically acclaimed and global hit lead single Green Light. Green Light has gone platinum all over the world and has been streamed over 1 billion times.
In 2019, he collaborated with Taylor Swift, co-writing and producing four songs on her global Number 1 and multi-platinum album ‘Lover’ including three of the singles Me!, You Need to Calm Down and The Man. The album’s lead single Me!, featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco, broke four Amazon Music records, including most first-day streams and most first-week streams, and peaked at Number 2 in the US where it was certified 2x platinum. The Grammy nominated You Need to Calm Down also peaked at Number 2 in the US, where it is certified 3x platinum, whilst The Man was a Top 25 hit in the US and UK, and is certified platinum in the US. Each has been streamed more than 1 billion times globally across all services.
In addition to his work with Lorde and Taylor Swift, Little has worked with globally successful artists including Ellie Goulding, Imagine Dragons, Shawn Mendes, Khalid, Sam Smith, James Bay and Jonas Brothers. Little’s songs have been streamed more than 15 billion times.
Merck Mercuriadis, founder of The Family (Music) Limited and Hipgnosis Songs, said: “Joel is one of the most important songwriters in the world today. More than eight years on from the iconic song that is Royals, he has continued to deliver massive hits for Lorde, Taylor Swift, Khalid, Imagine Dragons and many more. His songs are amongst the most streamed songs of the last 10 years amassing more than 15 billion streams globally. It’s wonderful to welcome Joel and Ashley to the Hipgnosis Family.”
Joel Little added: “I feel incredibly grateful for my career in songwriting up to this point. It’s really nice to know that these songs will be so well taken care of by Merck and his team of passionate music people. Hipgnosis have big plans and I’m very excited to see how far they can champion the cause for all songwriters in the coming years.”
SONG : Hipgnosis bags catalogue of Grammy-winning producer Joel Little